Saturday, March 29, 2014

Six People I Want to Play Dungeons & Dragons With

I took this blog idea from the great Rule of the Dice blog, which has helped fill the void for me while tenfootpole is on hiatus. Rule of the Dice author C.D. Gallant-King is awesome because he plays a lot and has a metric ton of good stories to share.

I am always looking for fun people to play D&D with (it's the main reason I keep running the sometimes-awful D&D Encounters at the game store each Wednesday). The players don't need to know the rules, they just need to be fun people who aren't going to get all weepy if they roll a 1 on a 20-sided die. And they have to show up on time and pay attention. A good imagination is mandatory, too.

The Dungeon Master

Alan Moore

He is perhaps the greatest comic book writer of all time. He's the author of Watchmen, Killing Joke, and my personal favorite, Promethea. He wrote the Joker's origin. He is a real life magician, he has a bassy voice with an english accent, and he wears a silver ring on every finger. This man is a DM whether he knows it or not. He also believes that our culture is turning to steam.

You know he'd write his own adventure, and you know it would be awesome. He might do some stuff like in the Smax miniseries, where the heroes go on a quest to kill the world's first dragon (a cat with a third eye) which lives in a cave of skulls. And, you know, you'd marry your sister or something (hey, read the comic).

The Players

Allison Brie

She played AD&D on Community. She is on Mad Men, my favorite TV show, and she is fantastic (also severely under-rated) as the ultra-competent and effective wife of my hero, Pete Campbell. In real life, she seems to be a lot of fun to be around. She comes off as funny and kind. She is beautiful on the inside and the outside. She would be 10 minutes early to the game and she'd probably bring some kind of fun, weird chips for everyone to try.

Her Character: She can play a slightly haughty lawful good paladin in her sleep. She'd be the party leader, and she would not tolerate any uncivility from the rest of the party.

James Earl Jones

He seems like such a nice, laid back guy. And let's face it, he has more geek cred than almost anyone on the planet. He is the voice of Darth Vader! He might be one of those players who plays the game more for the social aspect of the gathering, but that's OK. Every once in a while, his character would shine. Sooner or later, there would be a tragic situation where we'd all beg him to shout out, at the table, an earth-shattering "NOOOOOOOOO".

His Character: He's a chaotic good cleric. He seems like he'd be more than happy to heal and let the other players do the heavy lifting. You know he'd roll out a field of dreams-style pearl of wisdom every once in a while, too.

Ronda Rousey

She is the UFC women's bantamweight champion. She is an olympic silver medalist. She has never lost a mixed martial arts fight. Ronda is known for her devil-may-care attitude and her incredible dedication to training. Her passion tends to boil over, which has caused some fans to root against her. All I know is, she would show up on time to every session and she would be very focused on the game. This is not a person who does anything half-assed.

Her Character: Ronda has often declared her love for Vegeta of Dragonball Z, an abrasive anti-hero. I would imagine that her character would be similar. She'd be a Neutral (maybe even Neutral Evil?) fighter or monk who lives by her own code and doesn't take crap from anyone. She'd be fiercely loyal to her companions, and would stop at absolutely nothing to destroy her enemies.

Monte Cook

He is one of the architects of 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons, and more recently the author of the massively popular Numenara RPG. He knows more about D&D and RPGs than almost anyone, and seems like a great guy to boot. I have always admired his creativity. He's written some of my favorite adventures, including A Paladin in Hell and Labyrinth of Madness (which will be the penultimate adventure in my current campaign). He may be the only player alive who could possibly match wits with the ingenious schemes Alan Moore's villains would cook up.

His Character: This one is easy. He'd play his character Malhavoc the wizard. From what I understand, Malhavoc is very powerful and a bit of a loose cannon. Something tells me, though, that Ronda Rousey and Allison Brie could keep him in line.

I found a little info about Malhavoc from a Reddit AMA thing Monte did about 6 months ago: "....it was a character I played when I was a teenager in D&D. He was an elf wizard named Malhavoc with a complex backstory. Over the course of the game, he betrayed all his friends, but eventually grew as a character due to various events, had a change of heart and rescued them from the predicament he had put them in. He had a romantic relationship with an NPC, built a stronghold, had a confrontation with his long-lost father, discovered his half-brother (whom he hated)... oh, and you know, fought some monsters and explored some dungeons too."

Joel Hodgson

(They tried to kill him with a forklift)

Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a show about a guy and some robots making fun of movies. It was hilarious. Joel was our sleepy-eyed host, who was always coming up with gadgets for his "invention exchanges" with the mad scientists down on earth. Joel seems like such a fun, funny, laid back guy. Who wouldn't want to be pals with him?

His Character: Seeing how Joel is so into prop comedy, I kind of think he'd make a gnome artificer-type character that rides a giant space hamster. If anybody could pull one of those off, it'd be Joel. He'd also be the sober yin to Ronda's raging yang.

If someone put this group together and filmed it, they'd make 2 billion dollars. Just saying. They'd at least recoup their losses. Almost no question.